Cancerous
by SparkleJohn
Summary: I can't see anything, my mind is fuzzy and my body is numb. I can hear the voice of my friend but I don't know what he's saying. Am I dead? What happened to me? Jade gets caught up in a terrible string of events and keeps finding herself at the short end of the stick. She's lucky to have survived this last encounter with death itself.
1. Chapter 1

_**_Jade_**_

_Am I dead? I don't feel dead…What's happened? Where am I? My body hurts…all over._

I turned my head to the right, splitting pain shooting down my back and I grit my teeth with a groan of effort.

_My memories are cloudy…what happened?_

I can start to get foggy sounds of things moving by my ears, but the picture wasn't clear to me yet. Things flashed behind my closed eyes and I shifted them back and forth frantically, the lights streaking across the black canvas laid out before me. I began to regain feeling in my outer extremities, my arms and legs. Vision was still down for the count, but the sounds I was hearing began to take the form of a man's voice, frantically spewing noises that i couldn't comprehend. To my dismay, as I began to sense my body once more, pain began to seep into my bones and make me moan with discomfort. Why am I in so much pain? Again came the male's voice, a little clearer...but no words could be discerned amidst the calamity of beeping, whirring, yelling and creaking. I cringed when a sharp scream pierced my right ear, my entire body jolting to the side and i cried out in panic when my body was alit on fire. My skin itched and the throbbing agony of the muscles protesting against me took over all priority in my brain. I blacked out again.

I woke then, to the sharp tang of antiseptics and the scratchy feel of linen against my raw skin. The steady staccato beat of a clock came to my ears, followed by the off-beat clicking of a machine. I still could not see, much to my growing despair, but it seemed as though all of my other senses were up and working as normally as they would any other day of my life. Wait...what life? I don't even know where I am….Just then, a door opened and closed, the sound of light footfalls echoed in the room, aside from the beeping and ticking. I recognized two separate tempos of the steps, and I tilted my head towards the sound.

"You're awake?" Came the unmistakable voice of my best friend and half-brother, John.

"I'll go retrieve the others," A female voice I couldn't place just yet spoke, and the door reopened and closed. John's weight pressed down on the left of my bed just slightly, like he was leaning over me.

"You with us, Jade?" He asked, worry laced in the tone of his voice. He laid a hand on my forehead. "Don't worry, Rose is getting a few of the others, we've been anxious since you last woke up."

My eyebrows drew together as I processed what he said. _How long ago was that…?_ I took in a deep breath, and with a strained effort, managed to push air through my throat to utter the question I thought to myself.

"Well, Jade, um….You've been in a coma for a little over three months, and you woke up for the first time last week! We were all very excited, but you went back under almost as soon as you woke up. The doctors were afraid you'd never actually manage to stay conscious." John relayed all this to me breathlessly, and my heart dropped with every word.

_They didn't expect me to wake up? Who all was waiting for me to wake then?_

My head started hurting when the door opened for the third time today, and a myriad of voices filled the once-silent room. I distinguished between the voice of a few of my friends, only some of the voices being new to me. I heard Jane and Jake, both distant cousins of mine, as well as Feferi and Eridan, though i honestly don't know why she brought her brother along with her, as well as Sollux and Dave. I tried sitting up once I realized Dave was here, but I only succeeded in hurting myself and getting winded. As I lay there waiting for the throbbing to subside from my sides and lungs, I felt the bed once again dip under the weight of someones' butt.

"Jade, you're actually awake," The soft voice of Dave spoke next to me, and tears began welling in my eyes. I don't understand why I'm reacting like this though, I always see Dave, it's not like anything's happened to him. "Do you remember anything? Anything at all?"

"The doctor'th th'aid that you'd probably lo'th'e a little bit of your memory." Chimed in the heavily lisped voice of Dave's bestie, Sollux.

_Lose my memory…? Seriously?! I couldn't ever do that!_

Dave's hand grabbed mine, and he held it up to his chest, squeezing it lightly. "Do you remember what happened?" He repeated.

I shook my head side to side, since I doubt I could say it aloud. There was a sharp intake of breath from my friend and his hand loosened its grip on mine. He stood up then, the weight leaving my bed and making the covers cold.

"Alright, everyone out except John and Sollux. Somebody go find Karkat, text me when he's here but don't let him in. Tell the doctors Jade doesn't have any recollection of the car crash and that I will be catching her up on what happened, hopefully to jog her memory. Now out!" Dave ordered, the tone of his voice changing drastically while he commanded the rest of the welcoming party. Shuffling quickly started up and within seconds the room was cleared, and Dave again returned to my side, John on the other and I guess Sollux was standing behind Dave.

There was a long moment of silence, before it was broke by myself. "I can't see you…." I whispered quietly. A hand was placed on my forehead once again, and there was soft sigh before Dave spoke.

"The doctors said if you were to ever wake up, you'd never see again. I couldn't stop you from getting hurt….Because I wasn't good enough you ended up getting shrapnel from your car embedded deep within your eyes. The doctors could remove it, but not without severely damaging your nerves and tissues in your eyes. They said the most you'd ever get to see was light-" His voice choked off the rest of his sentence, and he laid his head down on my chest as a sob clawed its way out of his throat. "I'm so sorry Jade,"

My eyes watered, not from the devastating news that I was blind, but because Dave was actually crying. This boy has never once opened up to someone, never ever trusted them with anything and has especially never EVER cried. This surprised me and scared me beyond the fact I would never see again in my life. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and held him close. "D-Dave, don't cry please….I don't know what happened but at least I'm alive alright?" I ran my hands through his hair, tears leaking out of my damaged eyes and rolling down the sides of my face. My chest tightened in dismay and I continued on. "You saved me, okay? Who cares if I can't see anyways, I'll have Terezi teach me how to smell and taste as well as she does!"

Dave pulled back from me, sniffling. "Alright, fine." He heaved a deep breath. "But let's get down to business okay? How far back do you remember?"

I pondered his question, searching through my memories before I came across the most recent memory I had. It wasn't much really, I hadn't exactly retained a lot of memories as it is after coming to my second time


	2. Chapter 2

_**_Jade_**_

Today was the eve of mine and Karkat's one year anniversary, and boy was I beyond excited! I planned to go out with one of my closest friends, Rose, to go shopping for something for me to wear, since Karkat had insisted that we were to make this a night to remember.

_The details right around here are foggy to me, and my recollection isn't as great as I'd like it to be. But nonetheless, I continue relaying the scenes to Dave._

I did have this one dress that was gifted to me, I called it the '3am' dress, since the sparkles on the fabric reminded me of the sky around that time. In fact, actually, I had a lot of dresses! But Rose suggested we go find me one that was unique to the stopped at many outlet malls, finding almost nothing, until we came to the last store. There was a stunning dress that was all golden. It had a Victorian-esque feel to it, what with all the frilly bobbles and lace and the very poofy bottom, that flared out a lot, 'extenuating my figure' according to Rose. On our way back to my house, though, my phone buzzed with a reminder; "HOSPITAL APPOINTMENT DON'T FORGET! :D" and I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand, having completely forgotten about it!Frantically, Rose sped down the highway and to the hospital, wherein we waited half an hour until I was called back by Doc Scratch, the same doctor I've been seeing since I moved here. I needed some tests done on me since I had been reporting suspicious symptoms of a common type of disease. Bloodwork and urine samples were all that was needed, so it was all relatively done and over with.

_My recollection stopped about there, and I looked to Dave-or who I assumed was Dave-out of habit, even though all I saw before me was a plane of blackness. There was a small silence, filled by the mechanical beeping of my heart monitor. Dave spoke then, clearing his throat._

_"Well, I can't really fill you in on what happened at the hospital or anything, none of us were there. But…" He trailed off, which worried me a little bit. _

_"But what?" John asked before I could. I could hear Dave shift on the bedside, clearing a little uncomfortable. _

_"Alright, I'm telling you now though, Harley, this may be a little hard for you to take in since you don't have your memory and all. Just trust me on this, okay? I'll tell you what happened after you got back from the hospital."_

_**_Dave_**_

"Karkat! Th'omeone'th at the door!" Sollux called down the hall to the frantic teen, who came racing through the dark hall.

"And you couldn't have answered it!?" He was pulling on a shirt while running, flinging open the door. Sollux and I moved to stand behind Karkat, Rose and Jade were back and Jade didn't look good at all. "Harley? You don't look good, you okay?"

Before Jade could answer, Rose pushed her way inside, dragging the shaking girl after her. "Jade is not feeling one hundred percent tonight, I advise you leave her alone unless explicitly told otherwise by her or myself." She sat her down on the couch and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. "Karkat, fetch her a glass of water if you will, Dave and Sollux, I require you elsewhere," She motioned for Karkat to go away and beckoned Sollux and I down the hall, towards the spare bedroom. I heard Karkat grumble under his breath, but he obliged and left the room. Sollux and I followed Rose down the hall and she closed the door once we got inside the room. "Sit," She commanded and pointed to the bed. We wasted no time finding a place on the bed to sit.

"As you have observed, Jade is not in the best of health at the moment. Her and I have just returned from a check-up she was scheduled for this afternoon, wherein there was a troubling discovery made by her doctor-" She stopped for a breath, "-not only has she contracted some unknown disease of a fatal caliper, but said disease has now mutated into a string of cancer. A cancer, might I add, that no one on earth has ever seen before. As of the moment, the doctors have agreed to not retain Jade for testing immediately, and they have also agreed to let her stay out in the public, even though the have no knowledge if this cancer is contagious or not."

"Wait wait wait, hold the phone Lalonde." Sollux interrupted, "You mean to tell u'th that Harley'th gonna die? And that the doctor'th ju'tht 'let her go'?"

"Preciseley. But what I am also saying is that we cannot tell Karkat she has cancer under any circumstance." Rose replied.

"Why is that, exactly?"

"Have you not noticed the particular sign our friend Karkat just happens to brandish upon his garments? The same sign that he also claimed whilst he was an alien race oh so long ago?" Rose heaved a sigh and placed her hands on her hips. **"He gave her cancer!"**


End file.
